bitterness of winter, sweetness of spring
by pehtrovafire
Summary: When even Parrish notices, Stiles knows it's useless to deny what he still, and always will, have for Lydia. Post 5x10 canon divergence. [stiles/lydia]


The war ends not unlike the many they had faced before: there is a bloodbath, and somebody doesn't survive. This time they lose Theo. Scott is the only one who mourns for him and, while the pack has come to understand their Alpha's moral code, they cannot say that he will be missed.

They're still healing after his attempt at cleaving his way through them. They had very nearly surrendered, because Theo had taken them down in succession; masterfully tricking them all while playing second banana to the Dread Doctors. He'd studied their weaknesses and fractured the trust pact they had established among themselves. But deep down they believed that Scott would rise above the chimera eventually. He is a True Alpha, something that quakes with power even in its name (a name that had brought even Peter Hale to his knees) and they can wring him out and strain him to the breaking point but the one thing they cannot do—and will never be able to—is graze his fortitude. It had been the thing that earned him the title in the first place.

And so Scott had risen, and he'd picked up their pieces one by one just as he had always done, and almost easily they would fall back into their pattern. He is their leader, and as long as they keep their faith in him he will continue to lead them. He will continue to give them hope.

After all, they had gone through far worse than this. They'd braved Gerard, the Alpha pack, Deucalion 'Demon Wolf', the Darach. They'd braved Peter (a terror Lydia has long since been unafraid of and now merely relays all the hatred she can towards), and the more malevolent Nogitsune (she still winces at the thought of the scream that had clawed its way out of her throat, the one meant to mark an absence so violent she still feels it to this day). Something as pathetic as a pack-hungry chimera certainly cannot do any more damage to them internally.

He hadn't, however, left without rupturing Lydia to the point of catatonia and ultimately landing her in Eichen House.

Stiles had been the first to react. His breathing strayed from him as soon as the words 'Lydia' and 'Eichen House' met in the same sentence. Any amount of words after that he had promptly tuned out. He'd thought back to when he had seen her on the floor of the station, blood garnering around her delicate body, life forcibly draining from her. Eichen House is thus far the only proof of Hell he knows to exist, and the thought of Lydia being there—in a catatonic state more so—had made him so sick he'd had to physically choke back the urge to throw up.

Perhaps this had been the first of many clues that align in Malia's head: the way Stiles' blood-stoppering fists hadn't unclenched until they'd arrived at Lydia's gritty, flea-bitten excuse of a room in Eichen House. The way he hadn't been able to breathe naturally until she too gasped back into existence. The ease in which his convulsive hands had found Lydia's stock-still ones. It's there simply in the way he'd _looked_ at her; in the unutterable relief in his eyes and throat and trembling lips after discovering Lydia, still very much alive.

In the midst of it all Malia had felt jealous, though in the beginning she didn't understand why. She is relatively new to the idea of having feelings and, though she's learning, she still can't wrap her head around them. It doesn't make sense to her why feelings or emotions have to matter so much. If she'd had her way, Malia would much rather fight her way around instead of having to 'talk things out'. She doesn't feel the need to get petty as a means to make herself clear. The only emotion she can verily comprehend is guilt. It'd been the first thing she was forced to deal with as soon as she'd shifted back into a human, and it'd made a show of itself again when Tracy died in front of her and she could do nothing to stop it.

But seeing Stiles with Lydia sends a different kind of coldness through her spine. It's not so much that she's jealous of seeing her boyfriend (a term that she now admits she's been applying far too loosely) with someone else. It's more of a pang that comes when she sees them together—the longing looks, the subconscious desires that she can practically smell off them, their undying faith in one another—and noticing that Stiles and Lydia's 'tether' (it had been a subject matter they'd all beaten around the bush with whenever Malia had been near, until Scott'd finally let it slip) hasn't melted away. It's implicit, and they may not both recognise it, but it's still very much _there_.

What Stiles and Lydia have with each other clearly spins out far beyond any of them can put a proper date on, and once you've taken notice of something so glaring and significant it becomes impossible to ignore. Malia has seen it now, and regardless of whether she can find it with someone else or not, she decides she will back away until they figure it out themselves.

"I think we should end this," she says to Stiles on a somewhat dreary Monday afternoon in the library.

"Our 'study session'?" Stiles asks, rubbing his eyes (adorably, Malia can't help noting, but then quickly pushes the thought away). "Yeah, you're probably right. I stopped paying attention after slopes and functions."

"No, I mean our relationship." Malia doesn't display any outward emotion. At times like this, she truly appreciates her own blunt nature.

"What?" Stiles blurts, but his face is devoid of any hint of sadness; he's mostly just surprised. "What's wrong? Is this because I didn't tell you about Donovan? Or that I told you it mattered to _me_ , even though you didn't care what it meant? Because I—"

"Please shut up. It's not any of that." Malia keeps her face perfectly straight as she says the next words. "Stiles, I see the way you look at her."

Stiles opens his mouth quickly to object, but suddenly all words are lost to him. He's not stupid, and neither is she. He knows exactly whom Malia is referring to, but despite that, he still doesn't hesitate to defend himself.

"Malia, I swear, I didn't do anything with…" he fumbles again, "I would never, _ever_ do that to you. I couldn't."

"I know," Malia says, her face finally softening into a smile. "But I also know that whatever it is you feel for me, it's nowhere near how you feel about her. And… I'm weirdly okay with that."

Stiles looks at her with a pained expression in his eye. He doesn't deny any of what she'd just said, but Malia really _liked_ him and he liked _her_. They can't just go about pretending that whatever they had never existed. Even if they both know that Stiles would only be lying to himself if he said he didn't still have feelings for Lydia.

"Besides," she says, her reassuring voice only burying him deeper in the quicksand of guilt, "I don't think now's such a good time for me to be in a relationship. With everything going on, I mean."

"I'm sorry," he says, because it's the only thing he knows how to say, and he knows it's not enough, but it's what his tongue spits out anyway.

"I'll be fine, Stiles," Malia says, rolling her eyes like she always does every time things got too dramatic for her taste. "Seriously. Just go talk to her; it's the least you can do."

"I'm still sorry," Stiles says, sulking for further theatrical effect.

"Whatever." Malia smiles deftly at him. "I'm not going anywhere, okay? Don't worry. Scott needs us now more than ever, and I'm not abandoning any of you. Promise. Now go."

.

He wishes it were as easy as Malia had made it out to be. Of course Stiles doesn't immediately run up to Lydia and kiss her, à la every romantic comedy she'd probably seen. He goes home and waits, but for what he's not quite sure. Maybe he's waiting for his heart to break, to cry, or something, but all he feels is just a little disappointed. In himself, mostly. Like maybe he'd let them both down, or he hadn't tried hard enough to make it work.

The doorbell rings on the Thursday of the same week (he'd barely gone to school since the breakup), and though he's not exactly cheerful enough for guests, Stiles drags himself down the stairs anyway. He opens the front door to find Scott, with his ridiculously sad little puppy eyes, and Liam standing sheepishly behind him. Each of them is holding the original and prequel trilogy of _Star Wars_ respectively.

"We heard about the, uh," Liam pipes up, "and we thought we'd come and, uh—"

"I get it," Stiles says, holding his palm up to stop them both from turning into Mushy Wolf and Pathetically Soppy Wolf. "I see you boys are finally ready for this long overdue marathon."

It takes them all of two days to watch the six movies, with Stiles grumbling about how they could've seen them all in one night had they _not_ slept. They don't go to school the next day (though Liam is the only true miscreant here, since it's technically Senior Skip Day). They've just wrapped up with _Revenge of the Sith_ when Scott says, "You know, I think you should talk to Lydia."

"Not you, too," Stiles groans, making a face at his best friend. "I don't know, Scott. I feel like I've kind of missed my chance with her."

"You don't know that."

"Who said anything about—?" Stiles begins to fidget. "That I'm still—that I…"

"Honestly, Stiles?" Scott says, lifting an eyebrow like he can't believe Stiles is even attempting to cover it up. "Nobody had to say anything."

.

Stiles rings the doorbell a third time and is seriously considering making a run for it. He doesn't know what he's doing here. He hasn't even thought about what to say, or what he would do if Lydia outright rejects him (God forbid Lydia do anything of that sort at all). His fingers are a sweaty mess when he reaches for the doorbell again, and he's almost sure this isn't how the guys in the movies feel. He is fully aware that they're fictional men played by actors reciting astoundingly cheesy scriptwriting, but he feels betrayed nonetheless.

Natalie is the one to greet him. He tries not to let his face fall when she regretfully tells him that Lydia isn't home; it's three o'clock on a Saturday, and though he's aware that they all lead independent lives, he hadn't expected any of them to readapt so quickly.

He'd spent a lot of his time walking ever since his jeep got towed away. Still wallowing in the misery of his jeep's indefinite future, he doesn't perceive the pair of heels clicking their way up the same path and he stops dead when he sees her. She smiles up at him, cherry red and perfect and it's all he can do not to kiss her right there.

"Stiles," Lydia greets him with bright eyes and an unmissable hint of joy in her voice. "Hey."

"Hi," he says meekly, "I was just… uh, where were you?"

"At the station helping Jordan out." When she notices the puzzled look on his face, she reddens and hastily corrects herself, "Um, I mean, Deputy Parrish."

His smile melts away a little too quickly. He feels something sort of snap inside him (at how effortlessly she'd referred to the deputy as 'Jordan', at the relationship between the hellhound and the banshee that has clearly been blossoming under his nose this whole time). It's a while before he can muster up the resiliency to smile again, but he does. "That's good," he hears himself saying, "with him being a hellhound, I guess it makes it easier for you to figure it out… _together_ , since you both—"

"Hear death," Lydia finishes for him. There's a decidedly uncomfortable silence between them, so she continues. "That also makes us wonder if maybe we're connected in some way. You know, since I'm the harbinger of death, we figured that Parrish could be some sort of messenger."

"Connected," he parrots, surprising himself with his own voice, because the rest of his mouth feels numb all over. He thinks the use of 'we' and 'us' in her speech is excessive. There is something breaking inside his chest. "Of course. Makes sense."

He tries to pinpoint the moment he and Lydia had stopped being tethered to each other. He realises that it's impossible, because there isn't a single point in time when it wasn't Lydia who'd been carefully pulling the nightmares away in his sleep; Lydia that he had first reached out to during the diminutive bursts of colour he'd encountered amid the cold greyness of the Nogitsune; Lydia who had never ceased to be the mental, emotional and sometimes even physical anchor holding him upright.

"Sorry," Lydia says, lugging him back to reality, "Stiles, did you want to come inside?"

"That's okay." The words spill out hurriedly. "I mean," he wracks his brain for an excuse, "I think my dad's expecting me anyway."

"Oh," she nods, "right."

"I guess I'll see you in school?" It comes out a question. Hopeful.

"If you'll show," she trills back, smiling. "Bye, Stiles."

.

He doesn't go home. Life without his jeep is subsequently without direction, but he isn't complaining. His dad had offered to buy him a new car a few weeks ago (with whose money, Stiles doesn't really dare ask), but Stiles isn't ready to say a proper goodbye to the jeep yet; or _ever_ , for that matter.

With the thought of the Sheriff in mind, Stiles' feet subconsciously carry him to the station. Stilinski groans upon seeing his grinning son. "Stiles, what are you doing here?" He heaves another exaggerated sigh, as if the very sight of his son on the premises is too taxing even for him to cope with.

Stiles, offended by this, pulls a face that the Sheriff misinterprets. The exasperation on his face twists into something between consoling and cumbersome. "All right, son. Listen," he begins, getting up and putting a big hand on Stiles' shoulder, "I know breakups can be hard, but—"

"Oh my god, no." Stiles grimaces; he knows where this conversation is headed, and he isn't sure he wants to go through with it. Not yet, at least. "I'm fine, Dad. We really don't have to talk about it."

"Are you sure?" The Sheriff peers at him, simultaneously giving him a once-over.

"Positive." Stiles lingers awkwardly in the office for a few minutes before finally drifting away from the desk. "I'm gonna go get coffee."

Stiles meets Parrish at the door. It's almost difficult to look at him now. Stiles knows that he and Lydia have been spending a considerable amount of time together, and he's always been okay with that—at least, that's what he's been telling himself—but seeing Parrish now, handsome and young-looking (and okay, even Stiles has to admit that some part of him has a crush on the deputy) and voilà, also conveniently a member of the Dead Bodies Society in which Lydia is a part of, kind of sets Stiles veering away from 'being okay with that'.

"Hey, Stiles," Parrish greets in a sickeningly pleasant manner that Stiles has to mentally kick himself for ever having any cynical thoughts about him. "Uh, sir, there's something urgent you should look at here." He walks over to the Sheriff's table and for the first time, Stiles' curiosity isn't roused enough for him to eavesdrop. Instead, he saunters out of the room to the coffee machine and sits on one of the chairs outside the office, brooding over his polystyrene cup.

"Sorry to hear about the breakup," he hears Parrish say a couple of minutes later, and it makes Stiles flinch because every time he's reminded about it, he sees Malia's sad smile in his head and the guilt burns through his chest. He may have not done anything specifically but he still broke her heart; and though it may have been mutual, it doesn't guarantee that they can go back to being friends. They hadn't really been friends _before_ , now that Stiles thinks about it. "You want to talk about it?"

Stiles honest-to-God laughs, because Parrish is the last person he'd expect to share his personal life with. But Parrish is a nice enough guy. He hasn't done anything remotely bad, other than stealing dead chimeras' bodies and leading them on a wild goose chase (which they later learn that the hellhound inside him had been doing only because he's the proclaimed 'guardian of the supernatural', so to speak, but of course Stiles has yet to do his own form of pathological research on it). He's even helped them on numerous occasions where their lives were concerned.

"Not really," Stiles says into his coffee. There's a distinctly thorny silence that falls between them, until he offers, "So, a hellhound, huh?"

"Don't start." Parrish scrunches up his nose. "Seriously, what does that even mean? That I'm a demon dog?"

"Maybe you'll transform into a three-headed puppy overnight, if you're going with the whole Cerberus thing." Stiles is only half-joking, because after were-coyotes, kanimas, and kitsunes, he doesn't want to accidentally jinx himself where the supernatural world is involved. "Though I wouldn't want to piss off the god of the Underworld if I were you. _Really_ bad idea."

"Right," Parrish says with a small laugh. "So I'm Hades's pet dog. That's good to know."

The next swell of awkward silence is borderline suffocating. Stiles finishes his coffee and doesn't look Parrish in the eye. There's still a fragment of the horrible aching he'd felt earlier outside Lydia's house that he's been trying to swallow back (and believe him when he says he's _tried_ ). It demands not to go unnoticed, and before he can stop himself, his pathetic mouth spits out: "So, you and Lydia." He really doesn't mean for it to sound defensive or territorial—as it definitely would have been a year ago—because Lydia without a doubt belongs to no one except herself, but he can't help it. At the end of the day, he's still skin and bones and impetuousness.

Parrish's eyes widen. "What? No." He shakes his head slowly. "I mean, before I found out that I was a hellhound, I _thought_ I—" he clears his throat, flushing slightly in embarrassment, "because I was seeing things, but then I figured that it's just because of our connection, you know."

"Your connection," Stiles repeats, nodding strenuously. "Look, Parrish, I totally understand if you and Lydia are, well," he trails off, "I mean, I get it. Believe me, I do. It's Lydia. You'd be a complete _idiot_ not to, okay? I mean, she's _smart_ , like, terrifyingly smart, and she's beautiful; actually, no, that is a gross understatement, you wouldn't look at her and think just 'beautiful', you'd have to be visually impaired or something, unless," he stops again when he sees the bemusement in Parrish's eyes, "well, unless you prefer _men_ , too, of course, in which case I fully respect—"

"I have a fiancée," Parrish interrupts, and that shuts Stiles up instantly. "Or at least, I had one."

"What?"

"I mean, how do you explain to someone that you're basically a watchdog from Hell, right?" Parrish shakes his head incredulously, and his voice becomes slightly tremulous. "I've thought up about a hundred different ways to bring it up to her in casual conversation, but it's impossible. I don't think I can do this. I'm going have to end it."

"Wait a second," Stiles says, blinking rapidly, "you were getting _married_ this whole time? And you never bothered telling any of us?"

"I don't see why I had to," Parrish says, almost defensively. "Supernatural or not, a man is entitled to his own personal life, isn't he?"

" _No_ ," Stiles half-yells, staring at him in disbelief. It takes him a while to process the fact that not only is Parrish _not_ in love with Lydia (at least, not sentiently) but he's actually had someone else—a fiancée—all along. He's been spending his time, when he's not busy with his deputyship or stealing dead bodies, probably making preparations for his own wedding.

Parrish suddenly seems a lot more adult in Stiles' mind. While the rest of them are just a bunch of kids still figuring out their lives—granted, they're leaving for college pretty soon—Parrish already _has_ one. Stiles feels immensely sorry for him then, thinks about how the truth about what he really is could possibly shatter everything that his life has been building up to.

"Hey, look," Stiles finally says, his tone palliating, "if she really loves you, she'll accept you for what you are." His voice is firm for the words he says next, "And if _you_ really love _her_ , you'll know better than to keep this from her. It's always better when they know."

Parrish nods at him. "That's pretty much exactly what Lydia said, too." Stiles feels himself smiling. A knee-jerk reaction. There's a pause but it isn't as awkward as it had been before. Parrish studies him pensively. "You know, I think the two of you have something pretty significant."

Stiles feels his face heat up. They hadn't spent an hour talking about all of two things, and now here they are, having an unorthodox heart-to-heart chat. "Uh," he says, desperately picking up the last bit of his bravado, "I don't know what you—"

"I'm a deputy," Parrish grins, "and that makes me extremely perceptive."

"Right, of course it does," Stiles shoots back, but it doesn't come out as snarkily as he'd hoped it would.

"Also, she talks about you all the time." Parrish laughs at the reaction he gets. Stiles' mouth has fallen open just a little, and his insides are doing multiple backflips that he can only dream to attempt himself. "I mean, she talks about all of you, of course. But you especially." He takes the empty polystyrene cup from Stiles' motionless hands and stands up. "Look, I'm going to get back to work, but whatever you plan to do with this brand new information I've disclosed to you, just know that you have my full support.

"Oh, and Stiles?" Stiles finally cranes his neck to face him. "Thanks for the advice."


End file.
